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Be Considerate Toward Subordinates, Easy to Be Superior

By Aimu, Malaysia

I am a mechanical engineer in charge of mechanical design and maintenance in a local heavy machinery company. I’ve been working there since I graduated from college. Soon half a year passed, and my work was coming along quite well. No matter what difficulties I met at work, I was able to solve them easily with my skilled professional technique, so the manager was very satisfied with my performance, and praised me that I was doing a good job, even a perfect job. Receiving such high marks from my manager, I immediately felt that I was a rare talent.

One day, the manager asked me to his office and said, “Because we haven’t found proper people, I expect you to take charge of some different types of heavy machineries. Consequently, you are going to have twice the workload and work longer hours. Of course, in order to ease your burden, our company will redeploy ten people as your subordinates, and you are responsible for them. What do you think?” Being entrusted with such an important task by the leader, I couldn’t restrain my feelings of excitement. I thought: With my rich knowledge I learned during my university years and the solid expertise I mastered in the internship company, I am quite qualified for the work. So, I accepted the challenge confidently.

After taking over the work, I tried assigning my subordinates some tasks to see how they would do them, and then I would make further plans according to their performances. However, I was surprised to find that though they had years of working experience, their caliber was limited. What’s more, they were rigid and inflexible. When the machine went wrong during the operation, they would turn to me for help if they failed to find a solution from the book. I thought: How dull these people are! They even don’t know how to be flexible at work after working so many years. Having no choice, I had to tell them what to do with the knowledge I had learned. However, it really frustrated me that they didn’t understand after I explained an operating process, because they had low education— they only finished junior high school. I was growing impatient and thought: How come the manager arranged for such a group of people to be my subordinates? Is this helping me or troubling me? They are so dull. I really wonder how they muddled along during the past six or seven years. I would rather do it by myself than take effort to teach them. Afterward, considering their poor caliber and low education, I dare not assign work to them. In case something would go wrong, I, as a leader, would be responsible for it. Therefore, I only assigned unimportant tasks which were irrelevant to the company’s interests to them. As for those related to the company’s interests or needed to use their heads, I would attend everything personally and study them all by myself from start to finish.

Working for less than two weeks, the new machine began to act up. What I mastered was all theoretical knowledge, so I didn’t know how to solve the problems appearing in actual operation. When thinking of the trust of the company’s leaders, I felt great pressure. In order to master the operative technique, I often worked overtime and stayed up late to study the operation manual of the machinery by myself. More than one month later, I was seriously sleep-deprived, feeling washed out at work. Moreover, I would get very nervous as soon as I heard the manager wanted to see me. One morning, the machine suddenly stopped operating. My subordinates and I spent a long time in repairing it, but failed. Consequently, it was unable to work all that morning, which seriously delayed the progress of the work. The manager scolded me and satirized me, “The capability of the university students now is really poor. What good is your knowledge?” Hearing his sarcasm, I was very defiant in my heart: Isn’t it just because I lack experience? What’s the big deal? As long as I mastered some operation skills, I would definitely not make such a mistake again.

At the end of the month, the manager held a work conference. In order to show my capability, I explained my suggestion to be incomparable with some professional knowledge. Just when I was expressing my ideas excitedly, two relatively experienced subordinates pointed out the shortcomings of my suggestion on the spot, which irritated me. I thought: How many years of education did you receive? You simply work a few years longer than me. What qualifies you to give me advice? What’s more, the manager chose me for the position. It proves that I am little less capable than you. So I argued with them. To suppress them, I couldn’t help raising my voice, and used some abstruse words and theories which they didn’t understand to argue with them. Finally, they were reduced to silence because they thought I was professional and that they should listen to me. Seeing what I said was clear and logical, the manager also accepted my suggestion.

In order to show everybody my management ability, I started to be tough on my subordinates. Each time I saw them loaf on the job, or deal with the work half-heartedly, I would come down on them like a ton of bricks until they not dare to raise their heads. One day, when I saw a subordinate visiting FB during the working hours, I was very angry. I thought: You’re too irresponsible. You have the audacity to play the cell phone with the work having not been finished. Especially, when I saw the colleagues of other departments nearby, I even more felt my dignity was challenged. My subordinates’ behaviors all represented me. So undisciplined! How would the people of other departments see me? They would definitely laugh at my incompetence! Thus, I scolded my subordinates loudly, “You must keep my rule if you work at my place. Don’t play with your phones or answer personal calls at work. Anyone who breaks the rule get out of my place.” Being rebuked by me, that subordinate didn’t dare to raise his head. At the moment I wondered if I said too much, but once I thought I was their leader, and it was my duty to manage them and make them behave themselves, I felt it was okay to do so.

A few months later, a sister preached the gospel of the kingdom of Almighty God to me. Through the sister’s fellowship, I knew that since we humans were corrupted by Satan, there is corrupt satanic disposition within us. We live in dependence on corrupt satanic disposition, thus increasingly having no human likeness. Almighty God is incarnated and expresses the truth in the last days to save and purify us. Only if we accept God’s new work, and practice according to His words, can we be free from our corrupt disposition and live out the likeness of a normal person. The sister often shared her testimony of experiencing God’s judgment and chastisement with me. I felt her fellowship was very practical and I liked communicating with her very much.

One evening, when I was chatting with the sister online, she found that I was having a hoarse voice, so she asked what the matter was. I said, “I gave my subordinates a good scolding today. They were absent-minded and dilatory at work. They often made mistakes, which made me scolded by the manager.” After hearing my complaint, she said, “In God’s eyes we are all created beings. We are equal; it’s just that we have different jobs and duties. As a leader, you may as well try caring for them instead of just being angry with them and scolding them. What you exposed were arrogance, conceit, and lacking of love.” Hearing her words, I felt awkward, thus not saying a word. Seeing this, the sister sent me a passage of God’s words: “Once a man has status, he will often find it difficult to control his mood, and so he will enjoy seizing upon instances to express his dissatisfaction and vent his emotions; he will often flare up into rage for no apparent reason, so as to reveal his ability and let others know that his status and identity are different from those of ordinary people. Of course, corrupt people without any status will also frequently lose control. Their anger is frequently caused by damage to their individual benefits. In order to protect their own status and dignity, corrupt mankind will frequently vent their emotions and reveal their arrogant nature. Man will flare up in anger and vent his emotions in order to defend the existence of sin, and these actions are the ways with which man expresses his dissatisfaction. These actions brim with defilement; they brim with schemes and intrigues; they brim with man’s corruption and evil; more than that, they brim with man’s wild ambitions and desires.” She fellowshiped, “After we were corrupted by Satan, our nature is arrogant. Especially, when we have status, we even more feel we are different from others. Therefore, our arrogant disposition becomes more expanded. As long as we meet something unsatisfying, we will vent our emotions of dissatisfaction by anger. Actually, by doing so, we just want others to notice our status and be obedient to us. When our interests are damaged, we can’t help losing temper to defend our dignity and to make others fear us. Regardless of what situation, it is because of the arrogant disposition that we flare up into rage in order to defend our own status, benefits and dignity.”

Hearing the sister’s fellowship, I thought: In order to defend my status and dignity as their leader, I made my subordinates and people of other departments see my authority by flaring up into anger. Besides, when discussing schemes with my subordinates, if someone denied my scheme and challenged my dignity, I would argue with him loudly, with the intention to tell other subordinates that arguing with me would only make them lose face. I always thought that as a leader, I should show the leader’s dignity and make the subordinates listen to me. It turns out that my actions were the revelation of a kind of corrupt disposition, merely to maintain my status and dignity.

Then the sister read a passage of God’s words for me: “God created man, breathed life into him, and also gave him some of His intelligence, His abilities, and what He has and is. After God gave man all of these things, man was able to do some things independently and think on his own. If what man comes up with and does is good in the eyes of God, then God accepts it and does not interfere. If what man does is right, then God will just let it be that way for good. So what does the phrase ‘whatever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof’ indicate? It suggests that God did not make any amendments to the names of the various living creatures. Whatever name Adam called it, God would say ‘Yes’ and register the name as is. Did God express any opinions? No, that’s for sure. So what do you see here? God gave man intelligence and man used his God-given intelligence to do things. If what man does is positive in the eyes of God, then it is affirmed, acknowledged, and accepted by God without any evaluation or criticism. …if it were a corrupted person or Satan who was with Adam, they would have certainly rejected what Adam was doing. To prove that they have the ability to think independently and have their own unique insights, they would have absolutely denied everything Adam did: ‘You want to call it this? Well, I’m not going to call it this, I’m going to call it that; you called it Tom but I’m going to call it Harry. I have to show off my brilliance.’ What kind of nature is this? Is it not wildly arrogant? But does God have such a disposition? Did God have any unusual objections to this thing Adam did? The answer is unequivocally no! Of the disposition God reveals, there is not the slightest ounce of argumentativeness, arrogance, or self-rightness. That is abundantly clear here.”

The sister fellowshiped, “God is supreme, and His position and identity is honorable, but from the revelation of God’s disposition, we can see His humility and adorableness. There is no arrogance in God’s disposition. As long as what man does is according to God’s will, He will accept it, and won’t change or deny it. Comparing the revelation of God’s disposition with our attitudes to the subordinates, we can see the corrupt disposition we expose. We are too arrogant, self-righteous and self-important, while God’s disposition is so beautiful, which makes us feel ashamed.” Her fellowship made me feel too ashamed of myself to show my face. I thought: I am a corrupt man. However, once I have a high status in the company, I do what I like, and use my power to oppress others. Compared with God’s humility and hiddenness, I felt very ashamed. At that moment, I made up my mind to apologize to my subordinates and admit my mistakes bravely.

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